Your mug of tea is sending dreamy curls of mist up from between your cupped, warming hands. The steam forms, spirals, dissipates, and forms again in a diminutive cascade of sheerest lace that will end only when the tea has grown cold. This will be long after the heat sap of your hands is gone—long after the doorbell rings.

While you watch the tea, he watches you. You don't need to meet his vivid blue gaze to know that he is analyzing you, questioning. He wants to know if you are ready. He wants to know whether a whiteness in your knuckles means that you are thinking of backing out. And you thought about it last night, hair splayed sweaty on the pillow and one hand clasped in both of his. You thought about it this morning, splashing your face and squinting to block out the harsh fluorescent bathroom light. You thought about it at lunch as you picked anxiously at your sandwich. But you've stopped thinking. You've stopped doubting. Before your tea is cool, the doorbell will ring and you will do this. You look up from your tea, past his coffee, and into his assessing eyes. When you smile, they smile back.

Still, the doorbell makes you both jump and break eye contact, only to regain it with nervous laughter a moment later. He answers the door with what you're sure is a friendly, self-assured smile, although from your position hovering behind him all you can see is unruly brown hair and muscular shoulders. But as soon as the half-shouted hellos and masculine back-clapping begin, you're drawn, as always, to the hand on his shoulder. You are mesmerized by fingers as pale and delicate as the wisps of steam still curling off your untouched tea in the kitchen, so different from the large strong hands you know so well. As always, you try to tear your gaze away—but this time, you realize, you can stare all you want. This time, you can even do more. The shiver that rushes up your back at that thought feels like the brushing of smooth, tapered fingertips.